Sweetpeacefuldream Rides with the Group

Sweetpeacefuldream has been coming along so nicely this week.  She totally understands what she's supposed to be doing with her jumping and her flying lead changes, and she will even drift towards jumps in the arena while we're warming up because she likes to go over them.  Now I'm slowing it down to help her stay relaxed and confident.  We are still going over lots and lots of ground poles, which Miss Pea tries to jump at the beginning of the ride because it's fun and she knows she's good at it.  We just continue to go over them at all gaits and at all angles, and eventually she settles down and just lifts her feet over them within her stride instead of jumping.  I want her to learn to rate herself so she knows how high she needs to jump for different obstacles.  Developing her eye, so to speak.  Also, because she's only five years old, I don't want to put too much pressure on her with jumping bigger fences since her skeleton won't be done maturing until closer to seven years old. 

The photo from left to right is Joyce on her quarter horse, Billy; Kim H. on her paint mare, Rain; Sara on her warmblood, Fergie; and me on Miss Pea.

The other fun thing we've been doing has been riding with larger groups of horses.  When Miss Pea initially arrived, she was very wound up when I would ride with a large group.  She was convinced that we were all headed to a starting gate to run together!  Because I wanted her to stay relaxed, I backed off quite a bit so she wouldn't get stressed with the groups.  At most horse shows the warmup arena is usually bedlam, and I expect the makeover in Kentucky to be the same.  I want Miss Pea to be accustomed to the groups of horses all traveling in different directions and at different speeds. 

First I started just riding her by herself, then each week I incrementally added horses to her workouts until today we rode with four of us in the arena!  She got to walk, trot, and canter with the group, and also spent some time standing around napping while the other riders worked on their specific tasks.  I think this sort of group exercise is really important for a horse transitioning from the racetrack to a show horse lifestyle.  When racing they all run as fast as they can together, and in the sport horse arena you want a horse that is relaxed, rhythmic, and ignoring all the distractions around them including other horses.  Miss Pea is very sensibly figuring out all these lifestyle changes, and as you can see from the group photo she has gotten comfortable enough in groups to close her eyes and nap!